can I plug in 2nd internal HDD without rebooting?

[jbclem]

The computer is a Dell Optiplex 9010(Intel i7) mini tower computer, running Windows XP sp3. Two internal hard drives aboard.

I have a WD Blue 500GB drive that's going bad and is still working but is very very slow. So I unplugged it and plugged the 2nd hard drive into it's slot (SATA 0).
I installed WinXP sp3 on the 2nd drive (WD Black 500 GB) and it's working normally.

I want to move files from the WD Blue 500GB drive but I'd like to plug it in to the SATA 1 port without rebooting the computer, to avoid any possibility of the WD Blue drive booting up instead of the WD Black drive.

Is this possible, or do I have to reboot for the WD Blue drive to be recognized.

[pepe]

attach sata, attach power and perform a 'scan for new hardware' in device manager.
If the sata controller is configured as AHCI, the drive should be detected without the above scan.

pepe

[mr44er]

SATA 1 port without rebooting the computer, to avoid any possibility of the WD Blue drive booting up instead of the WD Black drive.

The SATA port (number) does not determine which disk is booted. As long as it isn't some garbage Board (Dell isn't) you can set the boot order in BIOS. Boot is possible from every port and even this boot order can be overriden via hot key before post. Mostly this is anything between F8-F12, google that.

Is this possible, or do I have to reboot for the WD Blue drive to be recognized.

Is possible, but as pepe stated, the controller must be set to AHCI mode (and sometimes there is an additional setting for hot swap enabling). If it is set to IDE, you need to reboot anyway.

[einstein9]

Try to change BIOS settings for those SATA ports and make it hot swap-able

[pepe]

If it is set to IDE, you need to reboot anyway.

No, just need to 'scan for hardware changes' in mmc. I am pretty confident i worked like that in the XP era, swapped target drives in and out all the time on live system, never rebooted due to this.
pepe